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Harradine searching for lost swing

John Salvado

Benn Harradine has likened his final hitout ahead of his Commonwealth Games discus defence to a golfer having an erratic day off the tee.

Harradine never got going in the Diamond League meet in Monte Carlo, finishing last of eight in a competition won by Beijing Olympics silver medallist Piotr Malachowski from Poland with 65.84m.

Harradine could manage no better than 61.25m - way below his season's best of 65.94m - in a competition where none of the other throwers were from Commonwealth nations.

"You have to deal with it, review it and then think about what is next and how we can move forward," he said.

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"It is not one of those things where you can just go 'well, I threw terribly'.

"I have just got to stay focused on the Commonwealth Games - that is my No.1 competition for the year.

"I am an experienced campaigner, that's what I have got behind me.

"I am a little bit older, I am getting a little bit wiser and I think that I can pull myself in the right direction."

With former world youth and world junior champion Fedrick Dacres not named in the Jamaican team, Harradine's stiffest competition for gold in Glasgow is likely to come from 2010 Games silver medallist Vikas Gowda from India and Australian Julian Wruck.

The 31-year-old will spend the next 10 days freshening up ahead of the qualifying round on July 30.

Get that right and he hopes to again be smashing the discus long and straight.

"I don't think I have lost anything," said Harradine, the national record older.

"It's like that golf swing, sometimes you go to the range or you go to the course and you try and knock the skin off it and it goes nowhere.

"(Monte Carlo) was one of those days where you try and find that little bit extra and it is not quite there, the timing is not meeting up.

"I know when I am at training and throwing 70 or 80 per cent those results are quite good and you come here trying to find that little bit extra and take those risks it can be give or take.